Popular history of Greece Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XI. THE DOOM OF THE ATRIDES. YOU remember that Ulysses met Agamemnon among the other ghosts. The King of Men, as the Iliad calls him, had vast beac... more »ons lighted from isle to isle, and from cape to cape, to announce that Troy was won, and that he was on his way home, little knowing what a welcome was in store for him. His wife, Clytemnestra had forgiven him for the loss of Iphigenia, and had listened to his cousin .Egisthus, who wanted to many her. She came forth and received Agamemnon with apparent joy, but his poor captive Cassandra wailed aloud, and would not cross the threshold, saying it streamed with blood, and that this was a house of slaughter. No one listened to her, and Agamemnon was led to the bath to refresh himself after the journey. Anew embroidered robe lay ready for him, but the sleeves were sewn up at the wrists, and while he could not get his hands free, jEgisthus fell on him and slew him, and poor Cassandra likewise. His daughter Electra, fearing that her young brother Orestes would not be safe since he was the right heir of the kingdom, sent him secretly away to Phocis, where the king bred him up with his own son Pylades, and the two youths loved each other as much as Achilles and Patroclus had done. It was the bounden duty of a son to be the avenger of his father's blood, and after eight years, as soon as Orestes was a grown warrior, he went with his friend in secret to Mycenae, and offered a lock of his hair on his father's tomb. Electra, coming out with her offerings, found these tokens, and knew that he was near. He made himself known, and she admitted him into the house, where he fulfilled his stern charge, and killed both Cly- temnestra and Egisthus, then celebrated their funeral rites with all due solemnity. This was on the very da...« less